Ohio newspaper endorses Mt. McKinley name change

The longstanding Alaskan campaign to restore the name “Denali” to Mount McKinley got an unlikely endorsement today.

For decades, Ohio Congress members have blocked the name change. William McKinley was from Ohio, and Ohioans have argued that renaming the mountain would dishonor a martyred president.

Today, though, one of Ohio’s largest newspapers called on the Buckeye State to stand down. The Columbus Dispatch calls Ohio’s insistence an “unseemly effort on behalf of a politician who never set foot near the mountain and had no known interest in it.”

The editorial suggests that, if the peak is officially named Denali — a moniker that pre-dates the United States — maybe the National Park handle could be changed back to “McKinley.” The newspaper reasons that the park was a creation of the government and might serve as a more fitting tribute to the 25th president, who was killed by an assassin’s bullet in 1901.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski has added the name change to the Interior Appropriations bill. She also sponsored a stand-alone bill to do the same.

Liz Ruskin covers Alaska issues in Washington as the network's D.C. correspondent.
She was born in Anchorage and is a West High grad. She has degrees from the University of Washington and the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia. She previously worked at the Homer News, the Anchorage Daily News and the Washington bureau of McClatchy Newspapers. She also freelanced for several years from the U.K. and Japan, in print and radio. Liz has been APRN’s Washington, D.C. correspondent since October 2013. She welcomes your news tips at lruskin (at) alaskapublic (dot) org | About Liz